


Make Your Papa Proud

by ImperialGirl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: F/M, Gen, Late Nights, Maternal Instinct, Pet, Pets, ysalamiri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 07:23:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13336275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImperialGirl/pseuds/ImperialGirl
Summary: Grand Admiral Thrawn just wants to get some sleep, and raise ysalamiri in captivity according to sound animal management principles. Lady Lisetha (of the TIE Fighter and Freak Fleet fics) has other ideas about the proper care and feeding of the runts of the litter.





	Make Your Papa Proud

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissKitsune08](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissKitsune08/gifts).



> For MissKitsune08, since she made a stressful day much brighter for me with "A Chick Magnet". As for which timeline this is....well, it can fit either one. Just adjust Thrawn and Lisetha's ages to suit. Fits the Thrawn week prompt 'Pets.'

 

  
Thrawn knew that the ysalamiri were useful. He had acquired them because they were. To breed them was, of course, important, as he couldn’t constantly be dispatching ships to the back of beyond world they came from. It was not a feasible use of fleet resources.

He had done as much research as time permitted and the xenozoology texts all agreed: regardless of species, when one was breeding exotic animals, there were always offspring too small and too weak to thrive. The female animal would generally refuse to care for these, and it was best practice, and often a kindness, to let nature take its course. It was a logical policy, and Thrawn found it eminently reasonable and fully intended to abide by it.

Whomever had written those texts had not accounted for the innate maternal instincts and sheer stubbornness of the Chiss female, though.

Thrawn squinted at the chrono as the shock of cold air under the covers, startling even by Chiss standards, jerked him to unwanted wakefulness. “It is three hours until the alarm,” he said into the darkness. “Is something wrong?”

The room was abruptly bathed in the half-level lights they both preferred on a normal basis, but right now they seemed as blinding as binary suns. Lisetha, wrapped rather fetchingly in her robe, was bent over the blanket-lined box that had taken over the table. She turned, smiling at Thrawn. “Shh. It’s time for their feeding. At this stage they require nourishment every two hours on Myrkyr’s day-night cycle. And Nulkii is so small I have decided every hour is preferable. You did not wake the first times. You must be very tired.”

“I have had a great deal to concern me in recent days.” _Notably that my wife has become foster-mother to several small fuzzy tree-lizards._ “And you will exhaust yourself.”

“It is no hardship.” She was carefully dispensing drops of the formulas those accursed texts had suggested as replacement for the diet a ysalamiri hatchling would be fed in the wild. “These little ones need special care. Holka, let your brother eat.”

“I do not think they understand Basic. Or Cheunh.” And she had _named_ them.

“They will learn.” Lisetha’s glowing eyes were fixed on her charges, carefully monitoring exactly how much each consumed. “Did you not intend for them to be acclimated to handling by yourself and the crew?”

“In the sense they are not stressed by constant contact.” He was doomed. He would never get back to sleep at this point. “Not that they are under the impression they are humans, or Chiss. And these three are unlikely to survive in any event, so this effort is out of proportion to its potential value.”

  
Lisetha spun around, and he knew that tight-lipped look. Now he’d done it. “Such a thing to say!” Somehow she managed to look positively furious, and yet still coo adoringly at the little creature cupped in her hands, “Don’t listen to your papa, Dukke. He doesn’t mean it.”

“I would not rely on your mama’s judgement in that regard,” Thrawn said, before realizing what he was saying. Or whom he was saying it to.

Lisetha smirked. It would have been infuriating if he weren’t too tired to work up the indignance required. “I told you he’d come around, littles. Now, back to sleep.”

“I am not ‘coming around,’” Thrawn said as she settled the hatchlings and dimmed the lights. “I am merely accepting circumstances I cannot appear to change this instant. How much longer do you anticipate this . . . fostering schedule will be required?”

“Not long at all,” she said, slipping back beneath the covers, and he sighed with the reassurance. For a moment. “At their current rate of gain, if the texts are correct, I anticipate they will be at a weight that night feedings will no longer be required after another . . . three standard weeks.”

“Three weeks!” Thrawn sat upright, but Lisetha had already curled on her side and closed her eyes.

“Or a bit more,” she said to the pillow. “Though they’re doing so well I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s only three weeks. I think they’re trying to make their papa proud.”


End file.
